Business coaching is a type of personal or human resource development. It provides positive support, feedback and advice to an individual or group basis to improve their personal effectiveness in the business setting. Business coaching includes executive coaching, corporate coaching and leadership coaching.
Further, standards and methods of training coaches can vary widely from organization to organization, reiterating the open-ended nature of business coaching.
We, at HAFNER refer to ourselves as Consultants, a broader business relationship than one which exclusively involves coaching. There are many different ways of delivering business coaching: Personal support and feedback, or combination of coaching approach with practical and structured business planning and bring a disciplined accountability to the relationship. We understand that business coaching is as much about driving profit as it is about developing the person.
Coaching is not a practice restricted to external experts or providers. Many organizations expect their senior leaders and middle managers to coach their team members to reach higher levels of performance, increased job satisfaction, personal growth, and career development. Business coaching is not the same as mentoring. Mentoring involves a developmental relationship between a more experienced "mentor" and a less experienced partner, and typically involves sharing of advice. A business coach can act as a mentor given that he or she has adequate expertise and experience. However, mentoring is not a form of business coaching.